 Welcome to Toffee TV. It is the Everton women's show, a show dedicated to the ladies. They deserve it. They deserve it. They're going to win everything, Sarah. This is what we were told. What's going on? Well, as you know, it's been a pretty rough start to the season for Everton women. Obviously, when we saw the fixture list, Manchester City first and Chelsea second, you're looking at them and going, those are about the hardest games that we could be given. However, I genuinely went into the city game, particularly feeling that we would get something from the game. I felt we could cause an upset, get a point, maybe beat them. Obviously, that ended four-nil, went wrong and then followed up on Saturday. Well, Sunday, I should say, Sunday just passed with a four-nil away at King's Mether at Chelsea. Now, Chelsea are the reigning champions. They are a cut above every other team in the league, but it was desperately frustrating to see us fall to another four-nil, especially given the kind of ambition and excitement and hype around the season. We've not got off to the best start, but it's early days. It's early days. No, it is early days. And as you said, there has been a very noticeable progression in the last couple of years at Everton, the building towards something. And it was always going to be difficult, like you said, because these clubs are the marker, Manchester City. And obviously Chelsea, you know, they're the champions. They got beaten in the Champions League final, but they're the marker. It's, you know, in any football, it can go one of two ways when you play a team early on in the season. A good team, you can catch them. And maybe Manchester City, I think what was annoying about that was I don't think they played any pre-season games. They'd had a few NGs and you were thinking it was that good of some park. You're thinking, oh, that was the big opportunity, maybe. Because I think if Everton had won that, if the women had won that game, then I think that really puts them in good place for Chelsea. But it was such a disappointing game. I know you spoke about it with Bas last week. It was such a disappointing game. And obviously to take that away to Chelsea, having that, again, to have that on your shoulders, again, oh, we've got to go and play another good side. We haven't quite got to grips with everything. New players haven't quite settled in. And Chelsea coming off the back of a poor result for them, opening weekend the season against Arsenal away, it just happens again. And it's so disappointing, obviously, with everything that the club have been trying to get out there in terms of PR and signings and everything else going forward. Yeah, definitely. I think that's one of the things as well, obviously, when it's no secret that we've got big investment now and we've seen lots of new players, top draw players, coming to the club last season, we saw Valerie Gavan, who broke our transfer record fee signing on. And then we've done it again this summer with Johanna Benison, Sweden's just international tip to be one of the best players in the women's game in a few years' time. And we're talking a lot in the media about the new signings, the ambition to break into that top three, which is what you want. You want to create the bores. And that is ultimately the aim. And then I think when you build up all that hype, that adds pressure on yourselves as well. And then, obviously, to fall to two, four-nil defeat in the opening two is bitterly disappointing and kind of makes us realise we have still got a long way to go. But I think the Chelsea game, again, it was about the same sort of time that they opened the score and it was no nil until about the 25th minute, which it was the same with Manchester City. They then scored the goal. And in the other way around City, we were three-nil down at halftime. Chelsea were one-nil down at halftime and second half we just kind of lost ourselves again. But I think something we need to factor in is the fact we signed something like eight, nine new players as well. So that's going to take a while to let them bed in, the communication, et cetera. We've been playing with a new formation as well that perhaps has left us a little bit vulnerable at the back at times against those top-seeked types side. You know, if you get anything, they will pounce on you and they will make you pay for it. And I think it's those margins, isn't it? It's those margins in football. And yeah, we've got a bit of a building bridge to get to the top of the teams, but let's hope now we've got two bad results out of the way. The girls are on an international break now. So just hope they come back, got a game against Birmingham next, and we should win that. And hopefully we'll breed a bit of confidence into the side. Yeah, let's just hear from Willie Kearke. Obviously he was very disappointed after the game. Let's just hear from him. Well, obviously a really difficult result to take how do you process that? Probably take about the process it. We've got an international break, so it gives us that chance. But also process, you know, that Man City game and together the two results are unacceptable for the level of player that we've got and the group that we've got. So yeah, we need to work hard and we've got two options, whether they accept it and let that happen week in, week out. And it'll start happening against teams nowhere at the Levely Chelsea. Or we stand up and fight back and start putting some of these wrongs, right? What have you learned from these last two games about your team? That, well, I already knew that there was still a lot of hard work to do. You know, we're constantly assessing the character of the players. We're constantly assessing them as individuals and them as a collective. And obviously there's a lot of work we need to do. Some basic things like communication, like individual errors that, you know, I want to lose to teams like Chelsea and Man City by those teams scoring great goals by great players and that's not happening. We're giving away really, really cheap goals and teams are not going to work that hard to score against us and that's really disappointing. And then obviously that has an impact on the confidence levels of the team in possession and I felt that we accepted a little bit early that we weren't going to pass the ball as much as we probably should have. And we've got to find that resilience and that determination and that self-belief to pass the ball because that's what we're good at. We've put together a squad of players that are good on the ball and that we've worked at our fitness levels. And, you know, we're not allowing ourselves to show those really good fitness levels and that really good technical ability because we're not taking risks with the ball. We're not passing the ball properly. We're not making appropriate angles so there's a lot of work needed in that. Because we saw, you know, the belief in the technical ability of this team, we saw that at the end of that first half, you know, pushing more and more down that left-hand side and then we just said maybe that second goal, just how it came so quickly, the second half, just kind of killed our hopes almost. Yeah, yeah, the second goal's killed the game, you know, after learning from last week that when you concede, you don't concede again. And that was really important and they've obviously learned from last week because they made some decisions after going to go down to ensure that we didn't concede again. So they stayed in the game until half-time. We regrouped, we spoke through a few things and then you can see that goal so quickly. It obviously puts you right on the back foot and when you're trying to build confidence and when you're trying to find a way into the game against the top team, you know, the last thing you need is to lose an early goal and a second half. It's fair to say though, Chelsea showed that, you know, they're a title-winning team even in the last 20-30 minutes, just completely relentless in our defensive line. They're a formidable team, formidable team and we're way behind them in terms of investment. But their goals, I still don't think they had to work hard for them. Great finishes for Sam Kier, you know, the header, fantastic finish. But why are we not attacking the header? Why are we not attacking the cross? So great players will be even better when you give them time and space and opportunities and I thought a lot of Chelsea's good stuff. We kept, you know, around the periphery of the box to blind shots or force shots. But yeah, Chelsea had a formidable team but that is still no excuse for us losing this game for them. We've spoken about the really impressive pre-season we've had and, you know, a lot of pauses from that. What's the biggest difference then from that pre-season that you've learned from that for the last two weeks for these two games? Those pauses will still be there later this season. You know, we'll regroup and we'll come back and we'll start off the next game right and we'll work hard and the thing is we've got two days to work with the group before the next game because of the national break and we'll put a team out to win the game and we need to find a way to get that confidence and go back to what we were doing in pre-season. We were playing pre-season, we freed them, with a smile on their face and we've got to find that freedom and that smile again. We've worked hard in pre-season, we're working hard just now but it's about getting that first result and then watching the points accumulate after that. The international break from your perspective is this coming at a good time or a bad time because, of course, the players give them an opportunity to have a reset mentally and go away from the camp and come back, but for you imagine it's just you want that next game straight away? Yeah, I think it's good and bad. I always think the players going away in a different environment, going and accumulating game minutes for an international team which is always a great experience and then coming back in and always coming back in with a spring in their step, they're glad to be back but on the other hand you would love to play again tomorrow because after two results like that you want to play again as soon as possible so yeah, the international break is positive and negative about it. There you go, obviously you can see it in his face, he's massively disappointed. I think he thought that the start of the season because the pre-season was great, wasn't it? It was a really good pre-season. Five out of five wins. Yeah, really good pre-season and I think, I don't know, I think it was almost like a perfect storm, that first game, being a good at St Park as well and I want to put my feelings right on the line here. I don't think that was a great idea playing at good at St Park for the first game of the season. I don't think it was a great idea and don't get me wrong, that's not anything to do with the women's team in terms of whether they should or shouldn't play at good at St Park. They deserve to play at St Park and they'll get more chances and it was just that I know that the new season started and I know there's a new TV deal and I know you're trying to put yourself out there as a league and everything. For me, I would really love to see Walton Hall Park become the bedrock of Everton ladies, Everton women going forward. Love to see that because it's one of the only papers built stadiums for women in the league. Forget about your big 40,000 stadiums or whatever. I'd like to see that place full up with two and a half thousand fans, noisy, the people right on the pitch. I think that would have been better. I understand the commercial pressures but seeing a empty good at St Park with a few thousand there, it just doesn't feel the same. It's never going to be able to conjure up the same kind of atmosphere that I think we needed in that first game. So I understand that's probably out of the hands of the people who run the club and stuff but I'm really looking forward to the next game where we play home. We'll discuss that on next week's show but I'm really looking forward to that. I'm really looking forward to the ladies getting to their own ground and making that a play start. It's people fear to come. Yeah, I agree with that, that Walton Hall Park, we have to make that place fortress. Like you said, it's one of the only papers built stadiums. It's a really unique and special thing to Everton women that we have got our own ground. You don't see that often. You see women's teams playing at lower league clubs. Obviously Liverpool have got news, Prenton Park is their home ground. And like you said, that seats so many people that even if they get a thousand, which isn't a bad capacity, empty and I think perfectly, if I was out there on the pitch, I would want to feel the presence of the fans, like you say at Goodison Park when it's rocking and we're on them. We're on top of them pretty much. And that's what we want to do with Walton Hall Park and unfortunately, with the pandemic and stuff like that, we only got to play one game there with fans and there was loads there, but it was about in the great atmosphere. Then of course comes COVID and we're not able to have any fans there at Walton Hall Park. So last season playing at Walton Hall Park, you know, it was empty, it was behind closed doors. So I just think now, if we can encourage as many people to get there, there was 6,000 nearly at Goodison. And you think if they were at Walton Hall Park, Oh yeah. Out of the place, you know. Break your safety certificate. If there's that many people there. No, but that's right though, because you're absolutely right. You should endorse the positives and the positives are like you just said, they're nearly 6,000 there. That doesn't look that many in Goodison. But you put that, you put a third of that within a small ground. And then also, there's been a resurgence in the last few years of people going to watch like non-league football and stuff like that. And because it goes away from the, you know, the new kind of football that we've seen in the Premier League and all the rest of it. A little bit of that. That's what you need. I think, I mean, we're hopefully going to get down to Walton Hall Park next weekend and show everyone how far away it is from Goodison and how to get there and everything. And I just think it's really important that that could be such a huge positive. And I really hope that you don't get dragged into this thing of like, oh, Goodison is the be all and end all. It's not. You've got your own ground. Let's use it to our benefit. Let's use it. So let's get the women used to playing on every week. It's not a sideshow. That's their ground. If they are a proper separate club or a proper separate team, that's their ground. We've got, they've got your own sponsors. You've got your kits available in the shop. You've got investments in the team. So let's get people down there and show them what that atmosphere can be like with two, two, three thousand down at Walton Hall Park. And I think that could be a major bonus where the players might just need that little bit of a pick me up because of two disappointing results. And I'm really looking forward to getting down in the experience and that kind of football and not being sort of, you know, stuck in my seat and that kind of. I want to be there standing like, you know, all the old days. And hopefully that's what we, that's what we get. It is, you've absolutely hit the nail on the head there. You know, it is that old standing, you know, you stand up, you stood on the terraces, you've got your chips and your pie and that. You're dead close to the smell of the grass, everything on mingling. It's a really social thing as well. You know, you get there, you see your mates, you can stand where you want. We're so close to the pitch, you know, you're on top of the pitch and it is, it's everything. I think that we as football fans find as the years progress with the Premier League, et cetera, you know, things that we love about the game are changing all the time and it's getting, it's a big business really, whereas with the women's game, although it is going to grow and grow and grow, there is still that grassroots feel about it in the sense of when you go the game and don't get me wrong, these girls are incredibly talented. The football is a joy to watch most of the time, but it's just got that authentic, proper football feel about it and you can't beat that, can you? We love that and that's what you'll get going to Alton. Because this is something I picked up on, I couldn't be a good person for that game as a way on holiday, but this is something I picked up from social media is a lot of people went to that game and they're sitting, they go and they sit in the seat and they're in the Premier League, it's a Premier League stadium and I think they sat down and they almost went, well, entertain me, like it's a Premier League game and they didn't, they don't realise the differences between the women's game and the men's game. Of course there's differences, so by being in that stadium I think that may have put some people off because it's like, well, this is not what we're used to. We want to be entertained in the way we're normally entertained, whereas I think, like you've just said, you get people to want no park, you get that old feeling. Because I'll be honest, right, I feel like the women's game is a lot more physical than the men's game, like what you can get away with, because women will just smash into each other and then help each other up and just get on with it. They're not that bothered, it's great, it's great. We've seen a little bit more of it in the men's game this season, I think they've been embarrassed into it. But I think if people get down there and they're standing there, and as you just said, they've got the pie in one hand and you know, a drink in the other, I don't know if you're allowed a pint, you know, that's it. We'll sort that out next week. We'll sort that out next week. Say there's not a lot of the pints in the game, but everyone else is. But that's what we've got to encourage people, I think, to get involved in is that experience, the experience of an old-fashioned football day that everyone loves. Let's get down to Waltonville Park next week and let's try and start building that day around that stadium and that team rather than the Gullison Park. Yeah, you spot on and obviously, as a die-hard blue, like, I love the fact that we got to play at Gullison. Yeah, of course. You know, it was special for me, you know, growing up, going that ground my whole life and seeing the girls play there. It was a lovely little crossover, but I think that's what we all kind of feel like we can't wait to get to Walton now, and that's our home, you know. Gullison Park, it's Everton's home, and we are Everton, and it'll be great to see, you know, as it grows, I'm sure there'll be games there, but I can't wait to get to Walton for everything you just said and going back to what you said about the physicality of the league, probably one of the highlights at the game against City in Gullison Park was Hayley Rassow, of course, who's left us to join Manchester City this season, bombing it down the wing. She's rapid as you like. We used to call her legged legs. And then Gabby George just comes crunching in with a superb challenge. Winners the ball, Hayley's on the floor, gets the ball, and that was the biggest rule we got, and it is. It's this tough tackling. It was a Ben Godfrey challenge. Tough tackling. It doesn't get hit in the face and they're straight back up again. It's the tough, and it's the kind of... We as Blues love the hard-hitting challenges, love the physicality, and that's what you'll get with Everton women. I just... I'll have to pick you up on something you've just said, though, that you're wrong. Ben Godfrey hits people like Gabby George, not the other way round. You know, you've got to know what you... You've got to know your loyalties. Just going back to those first two games, though, you mentioned the formation before. That is something that has definitely come on there. Some kind of scrutiny. There was a change. You know, he changed... Willie Kearke changed it in this game, but he made three changes for the Chelsea game. He took it, Tony dug it out, he took it, Darly out and he took it. Sever Cechy, is that how you pronounce it? Oh, because Svecki, yeah. Svecki, sorry, yeah. And I think Svecki was playing in that right-wing back role. He changed that. That just... In that first game against Manchester City, it was definitely an issue, wasn't it? That right-wing position, they would always... Is that... Is this something he's going to persist with, playing three at the back? Is this a complete new thing? You know, can you envisage more changes for the next game or have they got players to come back? You know, what's going on with that? Because just from people looking in, if maybe this is their first season, that seems like a really obvious issue at the start of the season. Yeah. No, I agree. I think it's clear to see that, especially that Manchester City game and the Chelsea game as well. They identified quite quickly that to hit us down our right-hand side was where to hurt us. And Rika Svecki, obviously, we played a few games in pre-season where Ri, who's a centre-half, was playing as right-back as part of the flat-back four. That seemed to work okay. But I think playing as a right-back or a right-wing back, it's very different in terms of your positional play on the pitch. And, you know, we saw that we were exposed there and then we made the change for the Chelsea game and it was Nico Sorensen playing in the right-wing back, which also isn't her position. And again, did her best, but we looked quite vulnerable there. And again, against the top teams, they're going to look for any weaknesses and honing on them. But we have German international right-back, Leone Meier, who unfortunately missed towards the end of pre-season and has missed the opening two games. So, you know, when she comes back in, you'd expect to see her fit back into, you know, what is her more natural position. But it would be interesting to see what Willie Kirk does with that, because as you said, you know, it's no secret that that's where we've been vulnerable. And I guess it's a matter now, if the manager thinks, I'm going to persist with this and this is my sort of logic and theory and how he was playing and I want to stick with it till it clicks. Or is he going to change it? I mean, the fact we've got Birmingham up next, with all due respect to Birmingham, that should be a game that we win comfortably. Yeah, we're definitely capable of winning that. So, whether he thinks I'll stick with this formation and see how it works against the other teams or... But no, it's definitely something that we need to look at because, again, I think it's a bit of a mixture of personnel, change of formation, these take time but we have looked very exposed there. Listen, it can go the other way and we've seen that with the men's team. You get a favourable start of the season and you get new players and you get a chance to bed them in and you might even play brilliantly in those games but because you have a level of player that is better than the opposition, it helps bed everything in. It's just that the Everton women's team have played the two of the best teams, certainly the best team and one of the other Champions League teams. They've come unstuck. So, he might stick to his guns, he might say, you know, when I get my preferred right wing back fit, we'll be okay. We've got to persist with it because this is what's going to take us forward. So, I'm sure he'll stick to his guns. He seems like that kind of failure. He seems like the kind of manager he knows his own mind and we'll see in the coming weeks. Yeah, definitely. I wouldn't be surprised to see if we do stick with it. As you said, Julie Kirk, somebody who will stick by what he believes and if that's what he wants to go with, then that's what we'll see again. I just hope that we see desperate to see a score our first goal of the season as well. You know, we've seen at Goodison and stuff and with the men's team now, with that feeling you get of being able to celebrate Everton's scoring again and I just can't wait to see that with the women's team but I think we desperately do need a bit of confidence now. I think a lot of the girls, there's only a few that are girls in Finch this week because we've got so many international players that most of the squad are away. You hope that that will probably give them a little bit of a battery charge, a bit of a refresh. Same for the girls that are here at Finch. Hopefully they've been working hard on what it is they're doing this weekend. We can come back next week at Walton Hall Park with, like you said, hopefully a rocking ground, loads of people coming along and that these girls can get off the mark get some goals and get the first points on the board of the season because I think that's psychologically, once you get that first point or then first few points, you're on your way, aren't you? Get that first goal, you're on your way. You just need that to happen now. Yeah, yeah, so the next game is next Saturday, it's a week Saturday against Birmingham City at Walton Hall Park and obviously the men play Norwich City at three o'clock. So if anyone can get down, you know, double head there if you've got that ability, do it because I'm sure it'll be a great setup for Everton versus Norwich City to catch both of those games. So that's next week, but we'll be back next week. We'll be chatting with Sarah. We're hoping to get down to Walton Hall Park ourselves next week to have a little look around the ground as well. So big thanks to you, Sarah, for joining us on The Everton Women's Show.